The collection of location data is not new – satellites, sensors and other IoT devices, mobile phones, connected vehicles, and more have been providing a flood of location-enabled data over the past decade. Until recently, location has not been central to most organizations’ data analytics and business intelligence efforts. As the amount of data gathered and analyzed has grown in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that location adds another critical dimension for analysis. To help organizations get the most from its location and/or geospatial data, new tools and standards are being developed to conduct these analyses.

“It used to be that ‘location, location, location’ was the central consideration for real estate. It is now increasingly core to applications and analytics,” said Lynne Schneider, research director, Location and Geospatial Intelligence at IDC. “This is not an entirely new market, but as the use of location-enabled data moves more mainstream, we are seeing a rapid increase in the need for location and geospatial data. The innovators are finding new sources, providing new value-added metrics, and creating the underlying common language of location that unlock the power of location data use cases. There are really exciting developments in this space.”

The report, IDC Innovators: Location and Geospatial Data, 2021 (IDC #US47643221), features four companies offering data solutions that address the growing needs of organizations to curate, interpret, and utilize information with a location and/or geospatial component. The four companies are:

• NextNav offers a resilient positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) solution derived from terrestrial positioning (rather than satellites) that incorporates a vertical (z-axis) dimension for greater precision.
• RS Metrics uses satellite data to provide objective, asset-level ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and other metrics across many hard-to-quantify environmental and physical areas.
• SafeGraph is striving to create an industry standard for place identification while providing data for global points of interest, building footprints with spatial hierarchy, and aggregated and anonymized mobility data.
• StreetLight Data licenses transportation data from a variety of originators and offers a value-added data product to help users analyze behavior in any area of the United States and Canada.

About IDC Innovators

IDC Innovators reports present a set of vendors – under $100 million in revenue at time of selection – chosen by an IDC analyst within a specific market that offer an innovative new technology, a groundbreaking approach to an existing issue, and/or an interesting new business model. It is not an exhaustive evaluation of all companies in a segment or a comparative ranking of the companies. Vendors in the process of being acquired by a larger company may be included in the report provided the acquisition is not finalized at the time of publication of the report. Vendors funded by venture capital firms may also be included in the report even if the venture capital firm has a financial stake in the vendor’s company. IDC INNOVATOR and IDC INNOVATORS are trademarks of International Data Group, Inc.

For more information about IDC Innovators research, please contact Jen Melker at jmelker@idc.com.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC’s analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights.